When I worked full time in female-heavy environments, it became apparent that traditional feminine traits were seen as weak. Surely, many conditioned feminine qualities do weaken women (like having to be nice or polite all the time, having to be submissive when it is contrary to her natural dominance) but intrinsic feminine qualities like softness and sensuality were also labeled weak. Intuition was dismissed as being irrational and crazy.

I started to notice that my female bosses would embody masculine traits and often in their language, attribute their success to acting like men. To succeed meant to draw out their masculine side at the hindrance of their femininity. This meant to succeed meant to renounce femininity.

There was little space for me. I did not want to renounce my femininity as I am very feminine naturally nor did I crave to draw out my masculinity and allow it to lead in order to experience "power".

What domming has taught me is that there is immense power in the feminine when embraced and harnessed. It is a refinement process of eliminating the weak qualities that have become linked to femininity through the process of socialization. It is a process of balance and understanding femininity can also be dominant (our culture links masculinity with dominance and femininity with submission, there's little leeway). It is about separating dominance from masculinity and understanding that each of these structures, though they do have intersections, function on their own.

I do not feel ashamed of my femininity. I love that that I am soft, more than anything in the world. I know that I do not have to behave like a man to succeed (and maybe others have found their success by doing this, but their way is not the only way and it is not my chosen path), at the expense of my own intrinsic qualities. There is room for all, and forcing others to reject, abandon and be ashamed of how they are is the wrong way.

The only ways in which I detach from socially understood femininity are the weakness and codependency that culture imposes through bombarding women with messages of lack in the media. Magazines for women tend to encourage women to cater to men and find 50 new ways to please him (underlying message: you are not enough as you are) and enforces a doormat mentality. Images teach women to be scared/ashamed of their bodies (because they are not a run way model) and sexuality (for fear of being a "whore"). I rebel against all this. You please me, I love my body and I have made a living embracing my sexuality.

Though I am very in touch with my intuition and emotions, I am fully independent and capable of not only managing my emotions but those of many others. My intuition serves me well and does not render me "crazy" but gives me a higher perceptive power. I do not wish to settle down in a traditional sense and never dreamed of a wedding or a white picket fence house where I cook and bake pies all day. I do not have a desire to have children to fulfill some sort of socially legitimized pattern- I will have them when I feel in my heart I am ready to take care of them (my parents had me in order to fulfill a cultural script before they were fiscally and emotionally ready- I learned their lesson). As a child I hated princess movies and dolls, but was never a tomboy. I am a feminine woman and I will lead my life the way that makes me happy. To not want to settle down or have normative dreams does not make me any less feminine, either.

DISTILL. REFINE. SEPARATE. QUESTION.

THE RIGHT WAY IS FINDING POWER IN THE IDENTITIES THAT WE FILL. WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT WE MAY NOT ALWAYS FIT INTO A LIMITING BOX SO WE MUST CREATE OUR OWN BOXES AND REMIND OTHERS TO DO SO AS WELL. WE MUST STOP RELYING ON PASSIVE, COGNITIVELY ECONOMICAL WAYS OF JUDGING OTHERS (I.E. RACIAL PROFILING)

THIS IS HOW WE ERASE PREJUDICE AND START RECOGNIZING INDIVIDUALS AS INDIVIDUALS.